Faith OUR YEAR OF
September 9, 2019 / Opening remarks for the academic year BY HEADMASTER WILLIAM L. BURKE III
P
erhaps you’ve heard the story of Mother Teresa’s conversation with a Congressman at a White House reception held in her honor. The Congressman praised her for her heroic service on behalf of the poorest of the poor in India and then asked whether she believed that her work was making any significant difference. Given the tremendous magnitude of the poverty problem with so many people dying on the streets of hunger and disease every day, did she really believe that she was being successful? Mother Teresa responded by telling the lawmaker that God doesn’t ask us to be successful. He asks us to be faithful. And so we launch our year of Faith. Faith is the first of the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. All three live in the here and now and concern themselves with the beyond and forever. A life devoid of faith, hope, and love would be very small, so terribly barren, and abjectly sad. Years ago, I read an article written by a Jesuit priest named William O’Malley, who had just celebrated a milestone birthday. What have I learned in these 60 years, he mused? These three things, he hoped: The difference between certitude and faith, the difference between optimism and hope, and the difference between sinlessness and love.
16 |
ST. SEBASTIAN’S MAGAZINE
We’ll tackle just the first one this morning: the difference between certitude and faith. Certitude or certainty exists in reason’s realm. Two and two equals four. The sun rises in the East. The Patriots defeated the Steelers last night. These statements can be tested, verified, proven true or false. Not so, faith, which is often associated with the heart and has been defined as complete trust or confidence in someone or something and as strong belief in God. Loyalty and fidelity, morality and trust, humility and belief travel with faith. Faith and reason perform different functions, and we need them both. Faith is soul stuff, immeasurable. 17th century French mathematician and Catholic theologian, Blaise Pascal, shares: “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.” And he asserts: “It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith; God felt by the heart, not by reason.” There are so many definitions of faith. I especially like one expressed by Thomas Keating, an American Catholic monk and priest, who passed last year at the age of 95. When he was in your age range, he was a student at Deerfield Academy. Here’s his definition: Faith is opening and surrendering to God. Opening and surrendering. We spoke much of opening 15 years ago, when Open was our theme. I remember sharing then that I had chosen Open because it was the word I
